'Big three' carry on

Friday

Feb 25, 2011 at 9:18 PM

By IRV OSLINT-G Staff Writer

Pumps, rubber goods and printing once dominated the area’s manufacturing sector. But, in the past generation or so, the landscape has changed dramatically with closings, changes in ownership, restructuring and reconfiguration involving the likes of F.E. Myers, Faultless, Landoll and Garber — big players in the pump, rubber and printing industry, respectively.

However, in some cases businesses that spun off of these long-standing staple industries have survived and appear to be holding their own, even in difficult economic times.

Water handling

The survival of these business clusters has been most evident in Ashland’s water handling industry.

The former F.E. Myers foundry and manufacturing plant on the city’s northeast side still is turning out high-end pumps and other goods under the Pentair name. The county also has a proliferation of pump and water-handling accessory and repair businesses, a lot of them founded by former employees of Myers, Hydromatic and other regional pump manufacturers.

Hydromatic Pumps was founded in Hayesville in 1959 by a group of former F.E. Myers employees to produce sump and wastewater pumps. Operations were moved to Baney Road in the mid 1970s. Hydromatic was part of the General Signal Pump Group when Pentair acquired it in 1997, making Hydromatic the sister company to F.E. Myers.

Myers dates to 1870. In its heyday, it had a work force of 500. A series of acquisitions and mergers began in 1960 culminating in the Pentair Group of St. Paul, Minn., consolidated operation of Myers and Hydromatic at the Myers Parkway plant, which employs 200 people. The company specializes in wastewater-handling pumps.

Brian Dlugo, operations manager of the Ashland plant of the Pentair Engineered Flow division of Pentair Inc. cited the region’s strong pump background as the reason for maintaining a presence in Ashland.

“It’s the general pump knowledge in this area,” Dlugo said. “There are folks at Pentair who can tell you their grandfathers worked here. We have lots of folks with lots of experience and that’s something you can’t replace.”

Some former employees struck out on their own, establishing small local pump manufacturing, accessory and repair businesses.

Among them is Septic Products Inc., founded in 2003 by Rod Mitchell, who worked 8 to 10 years for Pentair. SPI employs 10 to 12 people and makes high-water alarms, float switches and control panels for wastewater pump businesses.

Mitchell indicated that he’s found a good niche market and enjoys doing what he’s doing.

Gary Funkhouser, president of Certified Labs & Service Inc., is another Myers veteran with 17 years under his belt. He joined Certified in 1987, three years after it was founded. The company makes level controls and flow control switches and sells and repairs pumps.

Champion Pump, now located in a small workshop across the street from Pentair, was established by one-time Pentair director of engineering Jeff McFarlin and Jeff Hawks, who was in sales for Mansfield-based Barnes Pump Co. Established in 2005, Champion makes smaller sump pumps and sewer pumps.

Hawks indicated that it seemed logical to set up a small pump business in Ashland.

“When you travel the U.S., people tell you, ‘Where else would a startup pump company be?’ ” Hawks said.

Rubber goods

For nearly 100 years, Ashland has had a strong presence in the rubber goods sector with the likes of Eagle Rubber, Faultless Rubber and National Latex. Changes in the industry and globalization resulted in buyouts, closings and restructuring.

Descendants or successors of those businesses remain a solid force in Ashland manufacturing with the new Hedstrom Plastics, Novatex and Pioneer National Latex.

Eagle Rubber started making balloons out of a garage in 1916. The company grew and spawned an industry that led to Ashland becoming the balloon capital of the world. The company eventually added lines of plastic play balls. It was bought out by Hedstrom Inc. in 1981, which went bankrupt in 2004.

Local investors bought Hedstrom’s local assets and name, under a new company, Ball, Bounce & Sport Inc. and opened a new plant in the former Ashland Square Plaza on Baney Road. BB&S’s Hedstrom Entertainment Division makes play balls and other toys in Asia for U.S. and Canadian markets and Hedstrom Plastics’ rotomolding facility in the former Walmart building manufactures vinyl and polyethylene exercise and recreation equipment, plastic parts and other items for vendors of consumer and industrial products.

Mike Kelly, Hedstrom’s COO, cited two reasons BB&S has remained in Ashland: An entrenched core management group, some with a quarter-century experience, and location, with easy access to major airports.

Faultless Rubber, another longtime player in the Ashland rubber and plastics sector, was established in 1907. Faultless, which specialized in medical and hygiene products, was purchased by Abbott Labs in 1966. Abbott spun off the Ashland plant’s production to its Hospira division in 2004 and three years later, the plant closed down.

In 2007, a German firm, Novatex GmbH, purchased Hospira’s baby bottle nipple product line. The company established its first U.S. venture, Novatex North America LLC, in the Ashland Business Park. The new facility opened in 2007, and is now looking to triple its size, adding new product lines.

Novatex North America general manager Mike Donofrio said, “When the company was started, the management wanted to draw from the skilled, trained pool of employees created from the Hospira Ashland plant shutdown.”

In 1939, Harry Gill Sr., who helped incorporate Eagle Rubber, founded National Latex Products Co., another longtime key player in the local rubber goods industry. National Latex, a leading manufacturer of balloons and play balls, sold most of its assets in 1999 to Wichita, Kansas-based Pioneer Balloon Co.

Pioneer National Latex makes balloons, punch balls and reusable waterproof dog boots at its plant on East Fourth Street, which employs more than 100.

Printing

With the Landoll Co., Ashland once had a strong presence in printing coloring books and products imprinted with images of popular characters. The company, started by Jim Landoll in 1971, was sold in 1997 to the Tribune Co. Three years later, Tribune sold it to McGraw-Hill. In 2000, the Landolls had an office staff of 63, 127 people working in printing and 173 in distribution and customer service.

Former Landoll employees Ben Ferguson, Don Myers II and Donny Myers III, carried on the business by starting Bendon Publishing and Coloring Book Solutions. Bendon moved its production to Indiana in 2010. Bendon’s corporate offices remain in Ashland.

Printing for Coloring Book Solutions was done by Truax Printing.

Truax president Tom Truax, another one-time Landoll employee, said his company has been doing Bendon contracts for five or six years. Some of that work will be done at an Ashland facility recently acquired at East Eighth Street and Virginia Avenue.

Another key player in the region’s printing industry traces its roots to California. BookMasters was founded in 1970 as a book printing and sales company and moved to the Ashland area in 1979. The company has expanded into electronic publishing and continues to grow, with offices now in New York and London.

Ashland also has a strong history in making and printing cartons and retail packaging. That tradition can be traced to the Garber Co., which was founded in Bellville in about 1879 by A.L. Garber. He moved the to Ashland a few years later, where the company flourished for many years. The Garber Co. was purchased by an investment company in the late 1980s with Caraustar purchasing it in 1995. Citing over-saturation in the market, Caraustar closed in November 2003.

Today, Stock Pack is carrying on the tradition at the former Garber and Caraustar plant. Stock Pack, a division of a Ashtonne International LLC, was founded in 2007 by Dan Schlitt and Chad Honaker. Honaker formerly served as vice president of finance for the Bendon Co.

Other players in that industry, such as Coburn in Hayesville, remain, though they seem to have evolved independently of Garber.

n Irv Oslin can be reached at 419-281-0581, ext. 240, or at ioslin@times-gazette.com.

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